Sunday, July 17, 2011
Billy Graham:America's John the Baptist: An answer to Billy Graham's yearning question.
Billy Graham:America's John the Baptist: An answer to Billy Graham's yearning question.: "Could Billy Graham be the forerunner for Christ's return? 'Why me Lord? Why did you choose a farm-boy from North Carolina to preach to..."
Saturday, July 2, 2011
An answer to Billy Graham's yearning question.
Could Billy Graham be
the forerunner for
Christ's return?
Lessons of history
Looking back into religious history with a fresh mind, we are astonished by the new discoveries found in both, the Old and New testaments of the Bible, revealing great and valuable lessons that can answer many fundamental questions regarding God, His will for mankind and the Coming of the Messiah.
The "Chosen People" and the Retuning Elijah
To most of us people, who came to know Christ, history of Christianity and the "Chosen People", many would wonder and ask " How come? Why the Jews, God's chosen people, failed to recognize Jesus as their promised Messiah? Was there something in their scripture that gave them "Signs" on how the Messiah would come to them that Jesus didn't match their expectation?
Surprizingly yes!.. According to Malachi the last book of the Old Testament, we found that God had given His people a clear sign on how and when the Messiah would come to them..."Remember the Law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."(Malachi 4:4-6)
Here, we must understand how crucial the Second Coming of Elijah is for the Jewish people. This prophecy was the Chosen people's greatest and perhaps most accurate sign that God gave them. Elijah was sent ahead of the Messiah with a specific mission "to make a people prepared for the Lord. We can see here,that the Second Coming of Elijah is so vital to both; to God's dispensation, and to serve the prepared people as a sure sign for the coming of the Messiah.
John the Baptist
John the Baptist is a key figure in the Biblical stories of Jesus Christ. According to the Gospel, John's role was the forerunner, to prepare people and announce the coming of the Messiah (Jesus). In Luke 1:17 "And he (John) will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous-make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
In John1:23 John the Baptist himself tells his interrogators, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord".
Billy Graham
Billy Graham mission is to take the spirit and power of Elijah, "to make a people prepared for the Lord of the Second Coming! Though there were no clear signs given in the Gospel on how the Second Coming would take place, if we tune into our inner-most self, pray and read the scriptures with a fresh new understanding from lesson learned from the Second Coming of Elijah, we would be amazed by the astonishing signs on Billy Graham and his Ministry that reflect the work and mission of John the Baptist.
In our modern world today, there has never risen a John the Baptist figure on the world scale, greater than Billy Graham! As the cover of Time magazine put it"From Truman to Bush II, he's had a job no one has ever had-spiritual guide to the most powerful men in the world."
Like John the Baptist, Billy Graham was a wanderer, as portrayed in Time Magazine(August 20,2007), he is "a preacher who had no church, and who spent his life preaching to football stadiums full of people who he never saw again." Billy Graham was an inspired charismatic preacher who touched the hearts and souls of millions of people around the globe, awakening them and kindling their spiritual fire to receive the returning Christ. This, in a sense, is like the John the Baptist, who went before the Lord, to prepare a people for Him.
Second Coming of Christ
People who read thus far about Billy Graham, would perhaps wonder and ask, if Billy Graham is the forerunner for Christ's Second Coming, then where is Christ? Like the Jews in Jesus' days, People would undoubtably say, we haven't seen Him coming down from the sky? But as we have learned from the story of Elijah, Christ, likewise would appear in a different person! Just as the mission of Elijah was passed on to John the Baptist, Christ's mission has passed on to a Godly, anointed modern man of our time, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon whom God had prepared.
Like the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus, it is remarkable how Graham's miraculous life story and ministry had so much in common with Rev. Moon's life and ministry. Spiritually, they were like distant cousins, resembling John the Baptist and Jesus. It is really amazing how these two great men appeared to resemble each other in the way they have evangelized the world. Looking at photographs and reading through Reverend Graham's book Just As I Am, I cannot help but marvel at the similarity in the size of the mass-rallies or conventions these two men had gathered, drawing hundreds of thousands of people at a time who came to attend their revival conventions.
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
Like Billy Graham, Reverend Moon had drawn the largest crowd anyone in history could accomplish. More than 1.2 million people attended Reverend Moon's "World Rally for Korean Freedom"on June 7, 1975 in Seoul, south Korea. In the U.S., Reverend Moon once again drew the largest crowd at the Washington Monument and at the Yankee Stadium. Over 300,000 people attended the Washington Monument Rally!
Opportunity missed
the question to ask, did Reverend Graham, like John the Baptist, missed his greatest opportunity to witness to Christ? Sincerely! I don't wish to accuse or offend a great man of God, like Reverend Billy Graham, but the truth of the matter, in reading Matthew 24:27 and Revelation 2:17, I question whether Reverend Billy Graham understood these Bible prophecies contained in them regarding Christ's Second Coming which say, "Christ will be coming from the East and that he will come with a different name!" As was prophesied in Matthew 24:27, Reverend Moon did come from the East, Korea and shined in the West, America.
As spiritually attuned as he is; educated in pastoral theology and hermeneutics, on Bible interpretation. Billy Graham should have sensed that perhaps, the Messiah might possibly appear in his time, and might even come from Pyongyang, North Korea, which he, himself referred to as the "New Jerusalem" of the East. (Just As I Am, chapter "Through Unexpected Doors"). Interesting, in his book Just As I Am, in the "180-Degree" chapter He said that in 1934, Charlotte, North Carolina was like the New Jerusalem of the United States.
It is not hidden, Reverend Moon declared throughout his life, that he is the Second Coming of Christ! The whole world know it. It is reported on television news and in News Paper's articles everywhere in the world. I am certain Reverend Graham heard about Reverend Moon's claim many times. Reverend Moon did not proclaim he is the Jesus Christ Second Coming to America and the West only, Reverend Moon spoke of his mission way back in the early 1940s, well before the Korean war, where he was still living in Pyongyang, North Korea before the country was divided North and South.
Interestingly, there is another important question to ponder. Could it be coincidence that Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, spent her teenage years in Pyongyang, North Korea?! I wonder what school and church she attended when she was sent to Pyongyang, the "New Jerusalem" of the East, before the war in China? Could she have heard the rumors about this young man from Korea proclaiming himself the Messiah? Could she have talked about her years in Pyongyang to her husband or her children?
As I said, I have great respect and appreciation for Reverend Graham, and there is no question in my mind, he is the greatest man of God of the 21st century, but still thinking of the Unificationists' claim about him and his relationship with John the Baptist mission, makes one think again.
the forerunner for
Christ's return?
"Why me Lord? Why did you choose a farm-boy
from North Carolina to preach to so many people,
and to have a part in what You were doing in the
latter half of the twentieth century? I have thought
about that question a great deal, but I know also
that only God knows the answer."
(Time Magazine August,20 2007)
Lessons of history
Looking back into religious history with a fresh mind, we are astonished by the new discoveries found in both, the Old and New testaments of the Bible, revealing great and valuable lessons that can answer many fundamental questions regarding God, His will for mankind and the Coming of the Messiah.
The "Chosen People" and the Retuning Elijah
To most of us people, who came to know Christ, history of Christianity and the "Chosen People", many would wonder and ask " How come? Why the Jews, God's chosen people, failed to recognize Jesus as their promised Messiah? Was there something in their scripture that gave them "Signs" on how the Messiah would come to them that Jesus didn't match their expectation?
Surprizingly yes!.. According to Malachi the last book of the Old Testament, we found that God had given His people a clear sign on how and when the Messiah would come to them..."Remember the Law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."(Malachi 4:4-6)
Here, we must understand how crucial the Second Coming of Elijah is for the Jewish people. This prophecy was the Chosen people's greatest and perhaps most accurate sign that God gave them. Elijah was sent ahead of the Messiah with a specific mission "to make a people prepared for the Lord. We can see here,that the Second Coming of Elijah is so vital to both; to God's dispensation, and to serve the prepared people as a sure sign for the coming of the Messiah.
John the Baptist
John the Baptist is a key figure in the Biblical stories of Jesus Christ. According to the Gospel, John's role was the forerunner, to prepare people and announce the coming of the Messiah (Jesus). In Luke 1:17 "And he (John) will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous-make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
In John1:23 John the Baptist himself tells his interrogators, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord".
Billy Graham
Billy Graham mission is to take the spirit and power of Elijah, "to make a people prepared for the Lord of the Second Coming! Though there were no clear signs given in the Gospel on how the Second Coming would take place, if we tune into our inner-most self, pray and read the scriptures with a fresh new understanding from lesson learned from the Second Coming of Elijah, we would be amazed by the astonishing signs on Billy Graham and his Ministry that reflect the work and mission of John the Baptist.
In our modern world today, there has never risen a John the Baptist figure on the world scale, greater than Billy Graham! As the cover of Time magazine put it"From Truman to Bush II, he's had a job no one has ever had-spiritual guide to the most powerful men in the world."
Like John the Baptist, Billy Graham was a wanderer, as portrayed in Time Magazine(August 20,2007), he is "a preacher who had no church, and who spent his life preaching to football stadiums full of people who he never saw again." Billy Graham was an inspired charismatic preacher who touched the hearts and souls of millions of people around the globe, awakening them and kindling their spiritual fire to receive the returning Christ. This, in a sense, is like the John the Baptist, who went before the Lord, to prepare a people for Him.
Second Coming of Christ
People who read thus far about Billy Graham, would perhaps wonder and ask, if Billy Graham is the forerunner for Christ's Second Coming, then where is Christ? Like the Jews in Jesus' days, People would undoubtably say, we haven't seen Him coming down from the sky? But as we have learned from the story of Elijah, Christ, likewise would appear in a different person! Just as the mission of Elijah was passed on to John the Baptist, Christ's mission has passed on to a Godly, anointed modern man of our time, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon whom God had prepared.
Like the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus, it is remarkable how Graham's miraculous life story and ministry had so much in common with Rev. Moon's life and ministry. Spiritually, they were like distant cousins, resembling John the Baptist and Jesus. It is really amazing how these two great men appeared to resemble each other in the way they have evangelized the world. Looking at photographs and reading through Reverend Graham's book Just As I Am, I cannot help but marvel at the similarity in the size of the mass-rallies or conventions these two men had gathered, drawing hundreds of thousands of people at a time who came to attend their revival conventions.
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
Like Billy Graham, Reverend Moon had drawn the largest crowd anyone in history could accomplish. More than 1.2 million people attended Reverend Moon's "World Rally for Korean Freedom"on June 7, 1975 in Seoul, south Korea. In the U.S., Reverend Moon once again drew the largest crowd at the Washington Monument and at the Yankee Stadium. Over 300,000 people attended the Washington Monument Rally!
Opportunity missed
the question to ask, did Reverend Graham, like John the Baptist, missed his greatest opportunity to witness to Christ? Sincerely! I don't wish to accuse or offend a great man of God, like Reverend Billy Graham, but the truth of the matter, in reading Matthew 24:27 and Revelation 2:17, I question whether Reverend Billy Graham understood these Bible prophecies contained in them regarding Christ's Second Coming which say, "Christ will be coming from the East and that he will come with a different name!" As was prophesied in Matthew 24:27, Reverend Moon did come from the East, Korea and shined in the West, America.
As spiritually attuned as he is; educated in pastoral theology and hermeneutics, on Bible interpretation. Billy Graham should have sensed that perhaps, the Messiah might possibly appear in his time, and might even come from Pyongyang, North Korea, which he, himself referred to as the "New Jerusalem" of the East. (Just As I Am, chapter "Through Unexpected Doors"). Interesting, in his book Just As I Am, in the "180-Degree" chapter He said that in 1934, Charlotte, North Carolina was like the New Jerusalem of the United States.
It is not hidden, Reverend Moon declared throughout his life, that he is the Second Coming of Christ! The whole world know it. It is reported on television news and in News Paper's articles everywhere in the world. I am certain Reverend Graham heard about Reverend Moon's claim many times. Reverend Moon did not proclaim he is the Jesus Christ Second Coming to America and the West only, Reverend Moon spoke of his mission way back in the early 1940s, well before the Korean war, where he was still living in Pyongyang, North Korea before the country was divided North and South.
Interestingly, there is another important question to ponder. Could it be coincidence that Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, spent her teenage years in Pyongyang, North Korea?! I wonder what school and church she attended when she was sent to Pyongyang, the "New Jerusalem" of the East, before the war in China? Could she have heard the rumors about this young man from Korea proclaiming himself the Messiah? Could she have talked about her years in Pyongyang to her husband or her children?
As I said, I have great respect and appreciation for Reverend Graham, and there is no question in my mind, he is the greatest man of God of the 21st century, but still thinking of the Unificationists' claim about him and his relationship with John the Baptist mission, makes one think again.
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